Leadership in Empowered Schools Themes from Innovative Efforts

by Short, Paula M.; Greer, John T.

• ISBN13: 9780130199454
• ISBN10: 0130199451
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-07-09
• Publisher: Pearson

Summary

This book examines the important issues of educational leadership that relate to today's movement towards restructuring and creating empowering environments for teachers and their students. To better understand how to build empowering environments in schools, it examines two national studies conducted over six years in 26 schools. This body of research provides an empirical framework that is used to draw conclusions about leadership in schools striving to provide an empowering environment.

Author Biography

Paula M. Short is Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs for the University of Missouri System and Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Missouri-Columbia. She received the Ph.D. in Educational Administration and Supervision from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has served as a teacher and administrator at the building, district, and state levels of K-12 education and has been in higher education for 16 years. She is the recipient of the 1993 Jack Culbertson Award, given nationally to a junior professor for outstanding contributions in educational administration research, and the 1993 Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) Distinguished Service Award for her contributions to the NASSP Assessment Center Project. Paula is Past President of the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA), the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration, and the Southern Regional Council for Educational Administration.

Paula served five years as editor of the Journal of School Leadership, is series editor of the School Leaders Library published by Technomic Publishing Company, and serves on the editorial board of Educational Administration Quarterly. She served as a member of the American Association of School Administrators National Commission on Standards for the Superintendency and the Council of 55 that developed the publication Preparing Students for the 21st Century and has served two terms as a member of the National Policy Board for Educational Administration. Paula has published five books, four book chapters, and more than 60 scholarly journal articles on leadership, empowerment, collaboration, and organizational change. Her teaching and research interests include empowerment, collaboration in higher education, organizational change, and leadership.

John T. (Jack) Greer was Professor of Educational Policy Studies at Georgia State University. After serving as a teacher and administrator in public schools, he joined the faculties of the University of Arizona and the University of Nebraska. Jack served as the President of the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration (NCPEA), President of the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA), Chair for the Southern Regional Conference of Professors of Educational Administration, and Chair of the Latin American Committee of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. He served on the editorial board of Educational Administration Quarterly. Jack's untimely death was a tremendous loss to the field of educational administration. His interest in empowerment and the autonomous school had a profound effect on the research reported in this book. He is deeply missed by students, colleagues, and friends.

Table of Contents

1. Context of Restructuring and Empowerment.
2. Leadership and School Change.
3. Focusing and Structuring Processes.
4. Building a Trusting Environment.
5. Stimulating Risk Taking and Innovation.
6. Using Critical Events to Frame New Opportunities.
7. Reframing School Issues.
8. Empowering Teachers.
9. Empowering Students.
10. Evaluation of Empowering Leadership.
11. Reflection in Empowered Schools.

Excerpts

The last two decades have produced a sustained effort to restructure public education. Site-based management, charter schools, learner-centered communities, and teacher empowerment have been the focus of much of the reform effort. The call for change has advanced notions about roles, culture, and norms within school organizations. Ideas about leadership have expanded as schools attempt to build learning organizations with empowered participants. While much has been written about school restructuring, there is a need for a better understanding about how to build empowering environments in schools based on empirical findings rather than rhetoric or opinion.This book addresses that need by using two large national studies conducted over six years in 26 schools, as well as other research, to provide an empirical base for drawing conclusions about leadership in schools that are restructuring and striving to provide empowering environments for faculty and students. Professors and students of educational leadership should find the material in this book useful in the study of leadership and organizational change. Practitioners should find key dimensions of leadership useful in their application to the real world of practice.This new edition builds on the historical view of restructuring and empowerment as a context for understanding the two national studies and describes the current landscape of school restructuring. It presents the key dimensions of empowering leadership gleaned from research as well as an in-depth discussion of the leadership dimension. Leadership assessment instruments have been added to this new edition, as well as a chapter on leader reflection, critical to leadership understanding and development. New case studies from the schools that participated in the studies have been added to illustrate the leadership dimension. Not all cases show success; some are included to illustrate how the principal's failure to exercise particular leadership dimensions created less-than-desired results in the school's effort to create an empowering organization. Some cases are more in-depth than others, encouraging the reader to spend time reflecting and problem solving around the case scenario. The shorter cases give the reader the opportunity to pick up ideas quickly. Also new are "Voices from the Field," a series of descriptions of empowerment efforts in the voices of those who experienced them firsthand.Questions for discussion follow each of the in-depth case studies and should be useful in focusing discourse and debate regarding the leadership dimension and the particular school context described in the case. Finally, each chapter concludes with helpful references.This new edition should be useful to students as well as practitioners who have a commitment to the constant search for better ways to build schools that meet the needs of all students. ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe research reported in this book was supported with a grant from the Danforth Foundation of St. Louis, Missouri. I greatly appreciate the support of the foundation in efforts to better understand leadership in empowered schools. I also want to thank Linda Greer, Jack Greer's wonderful wife, for her interest and support in the publication of this second edition. In addition, I would like to acknowledge the contributions of those educators who wrote case studies and shared their "Voices from the Field" for the second edition of this book. Those individuals are Amy Miller, Pandora Gilboa Elementary School, Pandora, OH; James K. Walter, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi; Michael L. Supley, Education Study Center, Kingsville, TX; Betty Chong, Cape Girardeau School District; Rose Talent, Southeast Missouri State University; Cynthia MacGregor; Southwest Missouri State University; James Machell, Central Missouri State University; Carol Maher, University of Missouri-Columbia; Nancy Colbaugh, Weller Elementary School; Barbara Cros